Even as the Government remains bullish about economic growth next fiscal, leading economists aren't as confident as North Block mandarins about India's ability to even maintain the current growth rate given the many domestic and global headwind staring at the country.

The Union budget may provide the UPA government one last chance to redeem itself. It is also perhaps the biggest challenge before Pranab Mukherjee, and Manmohan Singh, to prove that they are capable of living up to expectations without using too much financial jargon. Pankaj Vohra writes.

The finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee presented his fifth budget (third in a series) in an upbeat mood on account of the swift and broad-based growth that the Indian economy has achieved in 2010-11. M Lakshminarayanan writes.

In 2007-08, the government’s fiscal deficit was around Rs. 1,27,000 crore. In one stroke, P Chidambaram more than doubled it to Rs. 3,37,000 crore in 2008-09, making a mockery of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. Yashwant Sinha writes.

The budget comes in the backdrop of an emerging global food crisis, caused partly by extreme weather events in some major food producing countries, and partly, by escalating petroleum price arising from the battles in the Middle East.

India is now the fifth biggest economy in the world. We are well on track to achieve double digit growth with contribution from sustained trends in savings and investments, continued momentum in services and efforts towards fiscal consolidation.

The finance minister presented this budget against the backdrop of high GDP growth. The growth so far has been broad-based across all sectors, even as economies in the West are still experiencing tepid growth and high unemployment. Kumar Mangalam Birla writes.